It wasn't that long ago the Super Bowl was more often than not an anticlimax to rest of the season. Not so in recent years: Six of the 10 games played in this decade have been decided by seven points or less. While Super Bowl XLIII between Pittsburgh and Arizona started out as a yawner, the Steelers' 27-23 comeback win ranks right up there with the best of the big games as far as tense moments and great plays. Sunday's nail-biter should yield good results for NBC when the ratings come out. The network's telecast was solid, with Al Michaels and John Madden — still the best of the NFL announce teams — again at the top of their games. We hope Madden eschews thoughts of retirement and returns for the final three years of his contract. Thankfully, the game was more interesting than the commercials. That said, there were several standout spots, including four from Anheuser-Busch … [Read more...]
Quickie High Life spots super
We'll know about midway through the third quarter of Super Bowl XLIII whether the high-powered Arizona Cardinals offense or the stout and stingy Pittsburgh Steelers defense will have the upper hand entering the game's critical final series. But two days before the extravaganza in Tampa, we're ready to declare Sunday's first big winner — Miller Brewing Co.'s one-second commercial strategy devised with the agency Saatchi & Saatchi. The campaign is already getting serious buzz from an aggressive and clever game-week rollout. In recent days, sports fans and viewers of the late-night comedy and talk shows have been fed a regular stream of setup ads in which America's best known High Life distributor, played by actor Windell Middlebrooks, rails about what it's costing advertisers for a 30-second Super Bowl ad. Instead, he suggests Miller can better make its case in shorter and … [Read more...]
GOP PAC makes last-ditch ‘SNF’ buy
In the weeks leading up to tomorrow's presidential election it's been the campaign of Democratic nominee Barack Obama that's saturated regional and national sports telecasts with a heavy dose of political advertising.But on NBC's "Sunday Night Football" broadcast between the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts, the National Republican Trust PAC bought a national spot that levels an eleventh-hour broadside against Obama and his association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.The ad, as described by Talking Points Memo, "features the now-infamous footage of Wright's livelier sermons, and intones that Obama 'never complained' about Wright 'until he ran for President,' adding that Obama is 'too radical, too risky.'" According to TPM, the ad — which had been running only in battleground states Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida … [Read more...]
Is it stolen yet?
Call it an advertising coup or football fever but the ESPN marketing folks seem to have an interesting dilemma on their hands. The network has been promoting its new season of "Monday Night Football" by installing turf-like mat postings at bus shelters and on walls in big cities across the country. This week ESPN's PR brigade is reporting these turf postings are being pilfered at an alarming rate by scofflaw fans run amok. In just seven days, 20 of the planned 195 turf mats in New York City — ranging in size from 68" high and 47" wide to 72" high and 96" wide — were stolen from their locations, according to The Worldwide Leader. Meanwhile, 13 of a planned 205 in Los Angeles were taken — and L.A. doesn't even have an NFL team of its own. (Are you listening, Ed Roski?) Other cities like Boston (three thefts), Chicago (six), San Francisco (two) and … [Read more...]
Obama goes for gold with ad buy
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's campaign has purchased $5 million worth of advertising on NBC's upcoming coverage of the Summer Olympics in Beijing, according to The New York Times. Obama’s commercials will appear on both the NBC network and on the company’s cable channels that are also showing the games, the Times reported. "Both the scale and the scope makes Obama's buy unprecedented," said Evan Tracey, the chief operating officer of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks advertising spending. "This is going beyond the battleground states; this is coverage that the entire country sees. It sort of validates his 50-state posture." … [Read more...]
RNC ad targets baseball viewers
Viewers of local Major League Baseball telecasts in four key battleground states have recently been getting a heavy dose of a Republican National Committee ad attacking Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's energy policies. The RNC has aggressively been buying ad time in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and its courting of the older male demographic that watches baseball underscores the importance of these states in the November general election. The ad has been airing for the past several days on local FSN telecasts of Detroit Tigers, Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates and Milwaukee Brewers games as well as Cleveland Indians games on STO. While praising GOP candidate John McCain's "balanced plan," the 30-second ad claims Obama "just says no to lower gas taxes, no to nuclear, no to more production. No new solutions." According to the Associated … [Read more...]
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